Its PC Sales Tailing Off, Sony Now Expects Loss

Sony slashed its profit outlook for the third time in a year on Thursday, putting increased pressure on its chief executive, Kazuo Hirai, to show he can still engineer a turnaround.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment giant warned on Thursday that it was set to post a 130 billion yen ($1.3 billion) net loss for the 12 months ended in March 2014. At the beginning of the year, it expected a ¥50 billion net profit. It will report earnings May 14.

But sales of its Vaio personal computers slumped after Sony announced earlier this year that it would leave the business, forcing the company to write down excess inventory by ¥30 billion. DVD sales also contracted faster than anticipated, resulting in Sony’s rethinking of its disc manufacturing business and an unexpected ¥25 billion impairment charge.

“There’s been so many write-downs at Sony, you come to almost expect them rather than be surprised by them,” said Daniel Ernst, founder of Hudson Square Research, an equity research firm in New York.

The growing losses add to the problems for Mr. Hirai, especially after he rejected a proposal last year to spin off part of Sony’s entertainment units.

That proposal, made by the activist investor Daniel S. Loeb, aimed to shield Sony’s movie, music and television programming divisions from the huge losses at its long-suffering consumer electronics arm. The company’s entertainment units, together with its gaming and finance businesses, have been the company’s standouts.

To shore up its earnings, Sony has sold off valuable assets, including its American corporate headquarters in New York for $1.1 billion, and two buildings in Tokyo for $1.2 billion. Sony has also said it will cut around 5,000 jobs in its TV, PC and other departments this fiscal year, and trim its fixed costs by ¥100 billion next year.

But analysts say profits will remain elusive unless Sony more aggressively restructures its mainstay electronics division. Sony has lost money on its Bravia televisions for a decade now, and many analysts wonder why Sony still makes them.

Sony has shown that it can, at times, beat the odds. Its PlayStation 4 game console has sold seven million units since its November debut, easily beating rival offerings from Microsoft and Nintendo and surprising skeptics who had declared dedicated game machines dead.